This presentation sounds very interesting. I'm really looking forward to learning more about the encore CMS and how its server-side moo client (XPress). As I understand it, encore even allows users to develop with its own object-oriented programming language—fascinating stuff. Encouraging users to take development into their own hands is one way that moos can stay relevant and exciting. I haven't tried encore myself yet, so your presentation will be very enlightening on many fronts.

On a more general level, I think there's more to the disenfranchisement of moos than many people realize. The sort of "real-time" processing required of moos hogs a lot of bandwidth and the server's processor time. There are concerns about efficiency. Furthermore, it's a bit of a step to emulate moos via the web. The clients I've seen use JAVA and its virtual machine to maintain portability. I just use a telnet portal and an old-fashioned client. I'm sure there must be FLASH-based clients out there now that might be faster. I've also seen PHP server-side clients that just "update" every seconds, but again, that must be seriously inefficient.

I think back in the early 90s we assumed the net would be a very synchronous place. I spent many hours on MUDs building up characters and could easily predict games like EverQuest and the like to create more graphical environments. I was a bit surprised that the WWW seemed to asynchronous. Web pages felt very dead compared to what was going on in the various muds and moods I frequented. I remember reading some of Dene Grigar's work and thinking that surely moos would find some way to remain relevant and important as the Internet became increasingly dominated by the web.

I think what's really missing is a full-featured free programming platform that rivals FLASH's saturation. Sure, we've got JAVA, but no one seems to be very excited about its possibilities. Whenever I use it, I'm put off by its slowness and the bulky virtual machine interface. I've yet to see a successful commercial title written for JAVA. All of the best online games I've played are either written in FLASH or rely on client-side executables (and thus lack true cross-platform functionality). Now that Adobe has bought Macromedia, it'll be interesting to see how they treat the FLASH platform. Perhaps they will open it up the same way they did their PDF. It'd be great to have some free software flash compilers.

Anyway, this is an interesting presentation and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Full disclosure: I've never participated in a MOO. I've tried to before, but have never been successful in actually getting in one. Those who know me might be surprised (or not) to hear this, but I have a really hard time with command-line interfaces. The times I've tried to join MOOs (I think I tried Connections MOO and another Rhet/Tech one that convened on Thursday nights, or maybe that was the same one), I struggled with the instructions on how to connect, because they assumed WAY too much. The first direction would be something like "Telnet to _blahblahblah_." And I would think, Okay...I have NO IDEA how to Telnet to something. What program do I use for that? Do I even have that program on my computer? What's the command to do that, if I am able to find the program? I'd get frustrated and stop trying. And I think I have a little more patience (not a lot more) than the average user when it comes to learning software, code, etc. I suspect it would take more idiot-proof instructions and/or a GUI interface for MOOs to rise in popularity now. Also, I don't think people generally like the barriers to entry one finds in MOOs.

I'll admit, too, that some aspects of MOOs escape me. I don't understand how they're different from other kinds of synchronous chat. I've read some of the MOO transcripts that were printed in Computers and Writing edited collections back in the mid-to-late 1990s, and they basically read like regular old chat to me.

I hope others will respond; I'd like to know what everyone else thinks. My take is that we're now in an open, distributed, serendipitous, centrifugal, "small pieces loosely joined" time in which online communities are more fluid. What do the rest of you think?

CultureCat

Rhetoric, Community, and Cyberspace by James P. Zappen, Laura J. Gurak, and Stephen Doheny-Farina is a pretty good article on MOOs.

CultureCat

Lennie Irvin
San Antonio College

Hey Clancy,

I think the article you posted does a good job of characterizing the synchronous nature of MOO. MOOs started as text-based, command line animals that were a devil as far as usability. That was part of the cool thing about them--that you had to have some tech-know-how to build, program and interact in them (not to mention hosting a moo). I came to MOO through a C&WOnline presentation in Connections MOO in 1999 or something (I forget) and found it really interesting. I latched onto enCore as a prefered interface because I liked the web integration and I felt it was easier for students to use. The basic problem with MOO and enCore has and still is usability. To have to type "say" before I chat, or @go to move somewhere or other "verbs" is sort of cool like doing function keys with the old WordPerfect 3.1, but I want a point and click interface. enCore has made steady progress in bringing the full world of MOO interactivity and creativity into a point-and-click world. MOO has always had, I think, the best chat interface. You can chat in a MOO like no where else. It also allows users to "build" their own spaces within the MOO, so it offers lots of vistas for creativity. What has been hard is to reproduce the other cool part of MOO which is the virtual reality things. The problem with these virtual reality aspects is that you have to code these yourself (or learn how to swipe someone else's code). The enCore Consortium is devoted to making all these elements easier to use. version 5 of enCore (the beta should be out very soon) should make a lot of improvements in usability over version 4. So I am hopeful that there will be a resurgence. The key will be to make it easy for people to use.

Usability is key; I agree with you there. Given that there are more choices available for anyone who wants to communicate online now than there were during the heyday of MOOs, I think they'll have to make them easier to access, with lower barriers to entry.

CultureCat

I first heard of a MOO when I attended CIWIC in 2000, but I have yet to really go beyond seeing a couple of MOO interfaces. Much like Clancy, my experiences using them are limited. I think that it is important that if a technology is still viable for classroom use and satisfies a need that is not met by current ones, it should be continually discussed. Having been to many sessions at various conferences and hearing the praises, as well as frustrations, of teachers using all of the online tools you have mentioned, I think that your presentation could not only add to these discussions but also complicate them by reintroducing the MOO and possibly adding another option to those that may not have any experience with them. Why have you still embraced MOOs? Hopefully, this question won't give away too much of your presentation.

Liz points out that you might focus on what you've gained by using MOOs. Since I'm right there with Clancy -- I've never been able to get into a MOO successfully, despite personalized instructions from our most respected MOOers -- I've never seen what's possible there.

I have lately been studying habbohotel, and I'm noticing one primary reason why it WOULDN'T make a good online teaching environment: too many graphic elements -- they're very distracting. So plug on with this project and bring back the text-based environment. But help them make one I and my students can use!

I think deanya hits on one reason we keep using MOOs in our online MA and PhD program: Because they're primarily text-based, they are functional. As Lennie notes, with the Encore application, they're fairly usable and accessible, too. I agree that something better could come along--and I want to try it out when it does--but the encore based MOO serves us well in our synchronous discussions that can be as much or as little "teacher-led" as we need.

Fred and Rich are always trying on new media, and we'll likely embrace some of it as we go--but for us, the MOO serves as a core that we build around because of its text-based nature, the constructivisit paradigm, and the ease w/ which our students, anyway, seem to be able to access it.

Hey Liz,

As Becky mentions, enCore is great for having an online class discussion. I happen to use it differently with my face-to-face composition classes that meet in a computer classroom. I use enCore for creating an online portfolio. Each student creates their own "home" room. Then they create a room for each essay. Inside this room can go all sorts of texts that surround the final draft--invention, earlier drafts, draft letter, peer responses. Plus, students can play some with formatting of the room and the essay. enCore v4 was ok but really still a difficult platform for students to use. I am hopeful the enCore v5 makes the usability that much easier for students to do this kind of "building." I could show you some student rooms and portfolios some time if you were interested.

Lennie Irvin
San Antonio College

Hi Lennie, I am intrigued by the use of a MOO for a portfolio. Is this encouraged within your department or are you doing this on your own? Do you see this as a portfolio medium that can translate into areas such as technical writing? I would love to see some examples of this. Liz

Lennie, Liz, and all:

My dissertation involved a study of Lennie's online portfolios as they connect to the writing process and classroom structure (thanks again Lennie!). If anyone could perceive a benefit to that read, I would be happy to send off an electronic copy of the applicable chapter! I also had a couple tech writing examples in that study. There are some really neat (yet complex) ways in which to make MOOs work.

Robert Koch Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
Gordon College
rkoch@gdn.edu

Hey Liz,

I'm afraid I'm a lone wolf when it comes to using enCore in my department (though I try to corrupt others). Not many even use portfolios. Luckily, my department gives us great freedom in what we can do with our students, so I am pretty much free to experiment in any way I want.

I think enCore is not quite ready for Technical Writing. As enCore stands right now (and I don't think this is evolved in v5) text is still unformatted within the program. That's a big problem for Tech Writing, so formatted stuff would have to be handled outside of it. However, you can publish web pages through enCore, so if you could get by with HTML for much of the work you would be alright.

One of my main pushes for enCore development is to include the ability for formatting within the program similar to the way Syllabase and Moodle handle text (which both use HTMLArea). I know Daniel has not gotten this text formatting feature within the beta v5, but perhaps I can convince him into fitting it in before the official release.

Lennie waves to Rob! Hey compadre! (You need to sign up for the enCore Consortium: http://encore-consortium.org

Lennie Irvin
San Antonio College

Robert,
I would appreciate reading your chapter. If you would send it to emonske@latech.edu that would be great.
Liz

Hi Lennie,
I really enjoy using e-portfolios as part of my classroom experiences for students. My new department (just finishing up my first year at Louisiana Tech) isn't ready for it at this time, but I am slowly trying to integrate them into my own curriculum design. I really appreciate your comments and giving me something to think about.
Liz :)

One of the reasons for continuing to use MOOs is that other technologies cannot yet offer some of the same features or possibilities. The real draw for me is the way a MOO uses the object-oriented database to allow users to create a virtual world, full of places and things that can be interacted with. I suspect that there is an inherent conflict at work between adaptablility and useablilty. In other words, the more control individual users have over programming complex objects, the less work the interface ends up doing for the user.

Even in an enCore MOO where a point-and-click interface makes navigation more web-like and where menus make creating places and objects more intuitive, the gui still provides very little assistence for the programming side of creating the objects (yes, there are menu options for adding a property or verb, but creating something like a complex verb message or random messages on an object requires knowing the code, which can be a barrier for some people. In terms of usablility, that is really the next thing I'd like to see enCore provide.

On the other hand, I have typically used the text-only MOOs, such as Connections, MediaMOO, Acadiana, etc because I like the way the narrative flow all scrolls into the same window, versus in enCore where commands and conversations appear in one frame, but room and object descriptions appear in a different frame. To me, there is more of a sense of being part of the narrative without the multuple frames.

I will definitely say Thank Goodness for mud clients. I really admire the dedication of the people who survived MOOing with raw telnet in years past! The client programs are a vast improvement, and these range from giving users of text MOOs a two-part interface (one window for reading the MOO, and a little window at the bottom for typing in commands) to enCore-like interfaces.

It is important to preserve the spatial metaphor and sense of a virtual world, since that is what makes the MOO something unique. If it is only used for conversation, other technologies are probably easier to use (though tools like the virtual slide projector to set off discussion prompts give it an edge in the synchronous realm as well). But the MOO is the only online environment I have experienced that let me create a virtual world, in text, to share with others.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that MOOs go beyond being synchronous discussion environments-- they are a blend of the synchronous and asynchronous, though typically it is their use as a discussion space that receives the most attention.

Susan